Marion Zimmer Bradley
Marion Zimmer Bradley has been writing for over 4 decades, but is best known
for her Darkover science fantasy series
and her Arthurian masterpiece, The Mists of Avalon. Her first
published novels were romances, written to pay the bills and
support her two children. She has also been editing anthologies for the
past 14 years and publishes Marion Zimmer Bradley's
FANTASY Magazine.

I eagerly await every Darkover book, whether it is by Marion Zimmer Bradley
(MZB to her fans) or one of her
anthologies of stories by fans and other writers. For those not familiar
with Darkover, let me summarize briefly.
A Terran colony ship crashes on a remote planet, and for well over a
thousand years the planet is forgotten. The colonists'
innate PSI powers are enhanced by their isolation and rare matings with one
of the native lifeforms, the chiere. A
feudal society develops based on those powers (called laran by the
settlers).

In The Shadow Matrix, Margaret Alton is struggling to learn about the
power of a PSI matrix etched into the palm of
her hand. Not having been raised on Darkover, she sees the restrictions
place on women as archaic, but also wants to fit
in. And her heart belongs to Mikhail Lanart-Hastur, but neither she nor
Mikhail can see a way that they will be able to
marry, for it would upset the dynastic plans of the ruling Comyn Council.

The novel is divided into three parts. The first part focuses on Mikhail,
and the horrific events that occur when he is
sent to find which of Priscilla Elhalyn's children might be fit to rule the
kingdom. What he finds are a crumbling manor,
an insane mother, and her terrified children. The second part begins when
Mikhail returns to Thendara, the capital
city. He finds himself in the middle of a political intrigue, and an
attempt to marry him to a woman other than his
beloved Margaret. The third part of the novel follows Mikhail and Margaret
through time, as they thwart Margaret's nemisis,
the powerful leroni (sorceress), Sharra.

If you're wondering what Part 1 has to do with the rest of the book, you
aren't alone: the storyline isn't even mentioned
on the book jacket. Although the children appear again in Parts 2 and 3, the backstory told in Part 1 isn't needed
to explain their presence or their actions. This isn't to say that Part 1
isn't enjoyable: it was fun to read. It simply
has little to do with the thwarted romance of Mikhail and Margaret, nor
their battle with Sharra. The story in Part 1 is a
gothic tale, very different in tone from the rest of the book. If you have
ever read any of MZB's gothic romances, you'll
recognize the elements. Bradley openly admits to occasionally
"cannibalizing some unpublished stories in
[her] masses of juvenilia, to write some hopefully saleable commercial
novelettes." I can't help but think that Part 1 is of
similar origin, added to lengthen the novel. (The quote comes from "A
Darkover Retrospective" by MZB, published in the 1980
Ace edition of The Planet Savers/The Sword of Aldones.)

Part 2 begins on page 205, and this is where the story that began in
Exile's Song is continued. The events and
conclusion of this tale will satisfy readers on multiple levels as the plot
lines are resolved, from Margaret and Mikhail's
romance to Mikhail's conflict about his place in ruling Darkover. Readers
will also be gratified to get a glimpse of
Darkover during the early days of the Compact and to meet two legendary
figures in the flesh.

This is the style of Darkover
novel that has won over so many fans. The world is richly realized and the
people fully human, making it hard to
imagine that Darkover doesn't truly exist. Every sense is engaged as
the characters move about, so the reader knows
what they smell, hear, and feel against their skin, and well as what they
think. And because of the telepathic abilities
of the comyn, another sense is added, making Darkover exotic at the
same time.

One of the things I like best about MZB's Darkover novels is the sheer
humanity of the characters. It's rare to find a
dislikable character in her books, for even the villains are driven by
ordinary, understandable, human emotions. Unlike
many science fiction novels, love is central to most of her stories. She
understands the motivational power of the love of
parents and children, the love between siblings, and, of course, romantic
love. (Is it because MZB began by writing romances
that she almost always includes a scene in which the heroine gets to shop
for new clothes? Regardless of the reason, it's
always fun to read about the new gown for the Midwinter or Midsummer ball.)

Bradley first conceived of Darkover when she was 15 and never intended to
write a series, but her editor (Donald A. Wollheim)
and her fans wanted more. Many of the novels can be read independently, but
if you want to read them in order from the
crash on, MZB adds a "Reader's Guide to Darkover" to all the recent books.
The events in The Shadow Matrix follow the
events in The Heritage of Hastur, Sharra's Exile, and
Exile's Song, all of which concern the attempts of
the heros and heroines to overcome the power-mad leroni, Sharra.

Lela Olszewski is an avid reader of science fiction, fantasy, mystery and
romance, as well as an eclectic mix of other fiction and non-fiction. She
is also a librarian with an interest in readers' advisory, and believes
fully in Rosenberg's Law: Never apologize for your reading tastes. She has
no cats.